Myriam > Status Update
Myriam
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What is it with the 1st person pov in m/m Romance? Is straight Romance like that too? Do authors think we can't connect to a different gender unless we're in their heads? I'm ready to be done with the genre over this issue. I can't be the only person coming to the genre via fan fiction and being stunned that this is so prevalent when it is one of the biggest no-no's in fandom. The audiences can't be that different.
— Sep 05, 2023 07:35AM
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Beth
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Sep 05, 2023 12:50PM
SAAAAAAAME. I truly despise this trend. It’s gotten so that when a MM romance is third person POV it automatically goes up in my rating even when it’s not great.
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Beth wrote: "SAAAAAAAME. I truly despise this trend. It’s gotten so that when a MM romance is third person POV it automatically goes up in my rating even when it’s not great."Saaaaaaame!! Finding a third person POV m/m is like finding a unicorn. I also generally add at least one star just for that! Though I don't think I even found one this year. Where is Sidney Bell when I need her? *sighs*
Bleh. I barely like 1st person POV generally, let alone in romance. I don't really get why it needs to be a thing unless it suits the narrative as a gimmick sort of thing (like epistolary novels, novels in journal form, or more modern, novels potentially in blog entry form). You mentioned the false impression that people can't connect to characters unless they're in the character's head -- I wonder whether other people actually struggle with that. This isn't bragging because that would be silly, but I've never struggled with connecting to a character unless the character themself was poorly written.
Also, why is it that whenever I read a 1st person POV, the POV is usually so terrible? I've read exceptions to that, and I've also read terrible 3rd person POV novels, but usually if an author uses 1st person POV to try and make me connect to the character, it's actually even more unrelatable to me than if it would've been in 3rd person, and breaks immersion far faster, because 1st person POV means I should probably be sympathetic to the POV character, and get what they're feeling, even identify with them up to a point. But if the narrative is in 1st person POV and a character's motives and personality are still incomprehensible, it takes me right out of the story.
You are singing my song, rowan! I actually made the post immediately after DNF'ing another promising sounding m/m book where the POV was just sooo baaad. I have made my peace with the fact that the writing quality in m/m romance is middling to bad. I go in with low expectations from the start. But as you say - 1st person actually makes it so much worse! A bad author can get away with so much more in 3rd! Dumb and boring main characters in an interesting plot can still be a three star read in 3rd. In 1st it's a DNF and a one star rating for wasting my time and money. But the general audience seems into it?
